


the boys with shields

by kyrilu



Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Consent Issues, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-07 22:26:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3185501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyrilu/pseuds/kyrilu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After he falls, he spends his days as a living dead man, in a haze of painkillers, alcohol, and scorpion stings. It takes awhile to get the scorpion trick right - the pincers initially leave red marks on his forearms and his wrists. But he doesn’t feel the pain anyway because of the numbing effect of the pills for the bullet wound.</p><p>Before he tries the trick the first time, Bond asks the man who’d caught the scorpion how a sting feels like.</p><p>“Fire,” the man says, in Turkish.</p><p>Later, when Silva runs his hands over Bond’s thighs, Bond remembers the scorpion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the boys with shields

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mechanicaljewel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mechanicaljewel/gifts), [andi-cane](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=andi-cane).



After he falls, he spends his days as a living dead man, in a haze of painkillers, alcohol, and scorpion stings. It takes awhile to get the scorpion trick right - the pincers initially leave red marks on his forearms and his wrists. But he doesn’t feel the pain anyway because of the numbing effect of the pills for the bullet wound.

Before he tries the trick the first time, Bond asks the man who’d caught the scorpion how a sting feels like.

"Fire," the man says, in Turkish.

Bond says, “It helps that I’m on good terms with water, then.” His hand strays to his chest.

Later, when Silva runs his hands over Bond’s thighs, Bond remembers the scorpion.

 

* * *

 

 

(Let’s pretend that this something different happened. Let’s say, in this version of the story, they have a little more time _._ Just a little more.)

 

* * *

 

The ship _Chimera_ cuts across the water, leaving seafoam in its wake. Bond stands next to Severine, feeling the wind on his face, and he wonders why after all these years he’s thinking of an old poem that he recited as a boy at school: _The boy stood on the burning deck._

It’s hardly burning, after all.

He lets the stray thought go. They’re approaching the island of Severine’s employer, now. Bond reaches into his pocket for the radio that that cheeky young quartermaster had handed him, and then he freezes.

It’s gone.

 

* * *

 

(In this version of the story, Severine’s _I’m sorry_ means something entirely different. Eve does not put the four million on red - the money is somehow confiscated by the casino management - and it ends up in Severine’s hands. Which is what she’s wanted. She’d like to finally get something that she wants, for once. Even if she is afraid.)

 

* * *

 

The rest plays out as expected, as it’s supposed to go. Silva ties Bond to a chair and touches him and taunts him. He leaves strings of his past dangling between their conversation - there’s strange, tangible history between him and M - and Bond’s led out back outside for a twisted game of William Tell.

 _Chaos_ starts before Silva gets to pull the trigger on Severine. Bond grits his teeth together. He has no backup; he can’t believe that he lost the radio. But he’s not going to be trotted out here and forced to shoot like he’s a stupid performing circus animal.

One of Silva’s thugs is down, and Bond wrestles with another. The other burly hired hands seemed to have disappeared - Bond doesn’t bother to check where they’ve been - and Bond steals the thug’s gun when he’s finally knocked him out. When he stands to turn the gun on Silva, he finds that he’s gone, along with Severine and the other thugs

Bond swears underneath his breath.

Then he notices a flash of white. Silva has ducked around the abandoned factory that they had been inside earlier, surprisingly fast - he’s turning around a corner. Bond has no bloody idea what’s going on. He didn’t think Silva would be the type to run like this, and he has a feeling that there’s something more happening here, beneath the surface.

Bond keeps his hands clenched around the gun. He draws closer to Silva, ready to bark out a warning for him to surrender--

\--and then the factory _explodes._  

The explosion sends a shockwave across the island. Bond is swept clear off his feet, crashing into the dilapidated rubble of another building. He can taste dust in his mouth, and there’s something roaring in his ears.

When he opens his eyes, he sees the ash swirling in the air and a fire where the factory used to stand. His pulls himself to his feet, shakily. He can feel the heat on the side of his face.

He checks himself for injuries - he’s bruised, and there’s some slight bleeding when he hit the ground, but otherwise, there’s nothing physically life-threatening, at the moment. (Unless he’s sustained internal wounds from the shock waves. Then, he’d be fucked. But Bond’s always been one for miracles in situations like these.)

Through the dust, he calls out to Silva, “Who’s living in a ruin now, Mr. Silva?”

He has his gun trained in front of him, pivoting, searching.

“ _Severine_ ,” Silva says. Bond strains to find what direction he’s coming from - Silva’s voice is low, hoarse, either as an aftereffect from the damage, or perhaps, from muted anger; hell if Bond knows. “This is her work, James. I expect by now she’s fleeing out on the _Chimera_ with my mutinous men. I underestimated your influence. I suppose she was rather inspired by you.”

“Or maybe by you,” Bond says. “I wasn’t the one trapping her. It’s not exactly about the last two rats and M.”

He’s still turning, round and round, squinting through the dust and ash. It’s like being lost in a fog, or maybe like being underwater again. The second thought makes his wound throb - a twinge of pressure, more than Silva’s taunting fingers - and he bites back a wince. Getting knocked around didn’t do it any favours.

“Whatever else,” Silva says, and suddenly, there’s a gun pressed at Bond’s back, “could this be about, James?”

(Silva had come out of the shadows. That’s the thing - the world is still in the shadows. No matter how sleek or shining everything appears, time running backwards or forwards or standing still, things ablaze or things submerged deep into the sea.)

Bond exhales. He doesn’t drop his gun, though, a gesture of surrender that he won’t give Silva. “I don’t know,” he says. “But we’re here. The last two rats on the island by ourselves. You centered your base on that factory. I wager that that explosion took out everything you’ve got: computers and any lines of communication and all of that lot. What’s next? Will we eat the world?”

Then Bond says, “I remember, before my resurrection, watching M16 burning.”

He remembers watching the grainy footage on TV, the taste of alcohol in his mouth and the scorpion stings on his skin like penance. He looks at the smoke rising from the factory, wrapping itself around him and Silva, making them into wispy phantoms.

Bond feels Silva’s breath on the nape of his neck. Silva says against his skin, “ _It was the most beautiful thing,_ ” and Bond doesn’t shiver. The tip of Silva’s gun traces out a curved path on his back, and Bond realizes that the pattern is a lopsided heart.

“I have a fairy tale for you, James,” Silva murmurs. “My grandmother used to tell me this one, and it has the happily-ever-after already laid out. I know how this will end.”

“Are there more animals in this story?” Bond says, steadily. “Hopefully not bulldogs. M has the most horrendous figurine on her desk.”

“No, not bulldogs,” Silva says. “Shh, James. Listen.”

Silva’s gun is still caressing Bond’s back like it’s a gentle, tender movement. Bond wonders why he finds it almost lulling, a heady mix of adrenaline and danger and something very close to a twisted type of seduction.

“Once upon a time,” Silva says, “there were two brothers.

“They were twins. They were raised by a cobbler and his wife, who had discovered them through some ridiculous magical means involving a fish. They were born with two shields - shining shields, powerful shields. 

“When the brothers grew up, they left to seek their fortunes. They wanted to make their names for themselves, you see, James? But they eventually found themselves at a crossroads. East and west. They parted there.

“The one who went east achieved quite some feats. He slew a dragon with the help of a mirror. He married a beautiful princess. Such a brave, strong hero, yes? But this hero wanted more. He saw a black marble castle, and decided to go take a look at it.

“Of course, this castle had nothing but misery in store, for those who had entered it had never returned. There was an ugly old woman who lived in the black marble castle, and what do you think she did to him, James?”

“She betrayed him,” Bond says. He doesn’t have to think twice about the answer that Silva expects.

“Oh yes,” Silva says. “She showed him after room after room in the castle, filled with marvels, new things. Then she lead him up a staircase. There were voices of _ghosts_ all around them, James. Ghosts that she had made because of her sins.

“It was a very, very dark ascent. All the old woman had to do was step aside and - _fwoo!_ \- our brave, noble hero tumbled down a trap door. Our brave hero was no more. He, too, became a ghost.

“But, of course, you must be wondering about the other brother. He happened upon his brother’s kingdom and realized that something terrible must have happened to his twin. He went to the black marble castle to see what had happened.

“At the castle, the old woman was shocked to see him - he looked exactly identical to the man she had just killed. The second brother, in revenge, ran the old woman through with a sword. She told him what she had done with her brother, and gave him the means to bring him back to life.

“So he did. He brought his brother back to life. The old woman died, and James, James - the black marble castle fell.”

Silva finished the story by leaning forward, more uncomfortably close than he already is, practically draping himself against Bond’s back. His hips are pressing, solid and warm. It’s constricting, all of this, the dust and the ash and Silva’s weight against him.

“Which brother are you?” Bond says. “Which brother am I?”

“Both,” Silva says, shrugging against him. “Either. It’s an allegory of sorts, James. You see--that ugly old woman wanted the first brother to stay with her. Dearest M to you. You can find parallels anywhere you like.”

 _And shouted but once more aloud, / ‘My father! must I stay?’_ The poem comes to his mind, unbidden, that damn old thing that he had to memorize along with the rest of the boys. But Silva’s wrong. Bond came back, of his own volition.

(But that doesn’t make him less tired. Not tired of M. Not tired of his country, surely. But there’s something in his bones. Not something physical, but just...there. Present. A specter of not doubt, but weariness.)

He’s said the line out loud, accidentally, and he feels Silva laugh against him delightedly. “Very fitting, James. My boy on the burning deck. You’ve felt that, haven’t you? Burning. When you died that day. Being wrecked and ruined and torn apart by the seams.”

Silva’s _touching_ him more, now. His free hand, the one that’s not holding the gun, is running toward the front of his body - his shoulders, his chest, his stomach. Light and teasing, as if he’s familiar with every contour of Bond’s body, laying claim to every space.

He squeezes Bond’s right thigh. Bond bites out, “And I thought that we were allegorical brothers, Mr. Silva.”

“It makes it more fun, then, doesn’t it?” Silva says, amicably. Gently, his hand goes back upward. He pries the gun out of Bond’s grip, and Bond lets him. Silva kicks it away, and Bond doesn’t flinch, letting him to that, too.

They’re left with their fingers twined together, Silva’s hand nestled over Bond’s trigger finger.

Silva shifts his hips against the curve of Bond’s arse. He can feel Silva’s erection against his trousers - it’s been there, for most of the time that Silva’s been telling his bloody fairy tale - and Bond had been trying not to feel it at all, but he can. He is.

He chokes out something like a _no_ , but he can barely hear himself.

“You said,” Silva whispers, “that it wouldn’t be the first time. But I want to do something that won’t just be part of a string of pathetic one-night stands. I want nothing but _shame_ from you, James. I want you to make you hate yourself for this. I want you to burn this time, too.”

That’s...ambitious of him, Bond thinks, but--he knows, in a way, that’s Silva’s got him. He’s got him like this, and he’s going to reduce him, even if for a short time, to something weaker than he really is. He knows this when Silva brings Bond’s trigger finger to his mouth and kisses it, and he knows this when Silva puts his hand on Bond’s cock, through his trousers, and _jerks_ , abrupt and rough--

“It’s not,” Bond says, gasps, when he feels that _push_ , that sensation of going down and down without being able to breathe.

“Not what?” Silva asks.

“Not like burning,” Bond says. “It’s--drowning.”

That’s when he climaxes with a low grunt, and he’s a fucking mess. Silva holds out his hand to Bond, presses his head downward. On his knees, Bond licks away his own come from Silva’s palm. He doesn’t want to do it, but Silva’s got his other hand curled in Bond’s hair, and he doesn’t want to--to struggle against the current, so to speak.

“What if,” Bond says, against Silva’s palm, “you’re the dragon that the first brother had killed? The one that he did in with the mirror. Your allegory breaks apart, Mr. Silva. You’re just a villain, a monster.”

Silva smiles, tightly and enigmatically, and doesn’t respond. His eyes look like they’re laughing at Bond - bright and sated - and then he pulls back. He disappears into the clouds of smoke and ash, leaving Bond with the taste of him in his mouth and an old story on his mind.

 

* * *

 

Bond finds Q’s radio on the beach, by the shore that the _Chimera_ had docked, and soon, the helicopters are gathering overhead.

 

* * *

 

The old woman falls, and Silva falls. The castle does not. Bond stands up over M’s body and goes outside the chapel. He feels numb from the cold; there are still fragments of ice on his skin, still water in his hair. He watches Skyfall burn orange against the pitch black sky.

**Author's Note:**

> The poem that Bond's thinking about is, of course, Felicia Hemans' _Casabianca_.
> 
> The story that Silva is paraphrasing is The Knights of the Fish, a Spanish fairy tale. There’s some alterations and exaggerations in his retelling, since it’s heavily tainted by what happened to him.


End file.
